A Little Comment(ary)...

Election coverage to cover all the bases
By JEANNINE GUTTMAN
Portland Press Herald

In major political campaigns, there’s something special about the post-Labor Day period: The end, at last, is near.

For candidates, a goal pursued over months and years is in sight. The last lap of a grueling race is approaching.

For voters, the time to make decisions is drawing near. In about eight weeks, we will be asked to choose. In two months, we will know who won – and who lost.

On Nov. 4, Maine citizens will cast ballots for president, the U.S. Senate, two U.S. House seats, State House posts, referenda questions and local races.

With summer officially over, candidates rev up their campaigns for this final push, fully aware of what is at stake. Accordingly, we’ve revved up our reporting efforts.

Today we kick off our post-Labor Day coverage with a Page A1 story that examines a “day in the life” of the U.S. Senate campaign. Reporters Matt Wickenheiser and Tom Bell chronicle life on the campaign trail for challenger Tom Allen and incumbent Susan Collins.

“What we’re trying to do with Sunday’s A1 story is capture the sights, sounds and activity from one day on the campaign trail for the U.S. Senate candidates,” said Andrew Russell, assistant managing editor for local news.

“The idea was to send two reporters and a photographer to follow both campaigns around on the same day to see how the candidates interact with voters, to explore how they frame their respective messages and, hopefully, to capture some behind-the-scenes material that help illustrate them as people.

“We’re also planning to send reporters out with the candidates for the 1st Congressional District to explore how they work the campaign trail.”

Next Sunday, we launch the first of a six-part Telegram series that examines the Maine perspective on key national issues. Topics: the economy; the war; education; energy costs; health care and diversity.

This series, which runs over six consecutive Sundays in the Telegram, will frame issues through the lives of Maine people and also compare and contrast the positions of presidential candidates Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

“With this series, we’re planning to focus more on voters’ concerns – the increasing cost of living, high energy costs, access to health care – through the eyes of Mainers and then explain how the presidential candidates would address those issues,” Russell said.

In October, we will co-host two candidate debates – for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, 1st District – with our media partner, WMTW-TV, Channel 8, and our two sister newspapers, the Waterville Morning Sentinel and the Kennebec Journal, in Augusta.

The debates will be streamed live, via the Web, enabling citizens from around Maine to e-mail their questions to the candidates. Additional questions will come from the audience and a panel of journalists.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=208706&ac=Insight

A musical, magical, tribute to JFK
BY J.P. DEVINE
Freelance Writer Morning Sentinel

Last week, I ran out of ideas. I walked Main Street, in Waterville, hoping to get lucky, to wash the taste of politics out of my mouth. I got lucky. I ran into an old Hollywood friend, a tireless Lauren Sterling, a 5-foot, 1-inch tornado. She is a Maine native who worked Hollywood and New York into her life before returning to her roots. She now works with the children of Maine as part of the Maine Governor's Children's cabinet and volunteers for everything involving children.
At the same time, she manages to star in just about every Broadway musical that opens here.

Lauren pulled me into the Opera House. "I want you to see something magical that is about to happen," she said.

"I don't want to see magic," I said. "I hate magic."

"You're an Irish Democrat and you don't believe in magic?" She dragged me inside.

There was a group of workers, throwing huge images of JFK and all the players of his life onto a giant white scrim. There was Jack and Bobby, bigger than life, just as they always were.

"OK, you got me, now show me magic," I said.

Lauren, it turns out, was part of the original theatrical group behind this upcoming show, called "Jack," and is co-producing this "magic."

This, I discovered, is how "Jack" came about. Back in 1993, Holt and Sawyer raised the money and grit to put on a show. It was called "Jack," and is the story of the Kennedy family's rise to power and John F. Kennedy's journey to become the first Catholic President of the United States.

For the next hour, I got a lesson in things I forgot -- about singers of songs and dreamers of dreams. It all started in 1993 on the stage of the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. It started with Maine-native Will Holt, who was already a legend for composing "Lemon Tree," and "Charlie on the MTA," for Peter, Paul and Mary and the great Kingston Trio. There was Thomas B. Sawyer, who, by then, was well-known for having written 24 episodes of the television hit, "Murder, She Wrote."

There at the famous Goodspeed Opera House, "Jack" was born.

This is a story that reveals Kennedy family secrets and, in music and verse, reveals the Kennedy struggle for social and political power, something that had long been kept from Irish Catholics in America. Things were looking good. It opened in Dublin, and was playing in Oklahoma City to rave reviews when the tragic Oklahoma City bombings brought it down. The Kennedy curse?

But "Jack" wasn't done yet. Recently, members of the original New York cast reunited in New York City to record a cast album. This, when America is going through one of the most serious and electrifying elections in history. Here is a young black man from out of nowhere who brought the memory of JFK back to life. Everything about him, his manner, his Harvard life, his charisma, not to mention that important word, "First."

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5381684.html

'What if?' turns into a happening this weekend
By JUSTIN ELLIS
Portland Press Herald

At its root was the kind of conversation all friends have. It's a dreamy "What if," a full-on bull session that is as fun as it is intense.

"What if we could create a new venue for live music in Portland?"

"Wouldn't it be great if we had a place for all the scattered crafters, artists and other wizards to not only meet but show and sell their work?"

For many of us, that's where the conversation ends, sometimes bitterly. But for the people behind the Picnic music and arts festival this weekend, it was just the beginning.

That "if" became a "how," and Saturday the festival will be an official happening at Lincoln Park in downtown Portland.

The Picnic festival is a mix of a block party, garage sale and craft fair. More than 70 local artists and crafters will be selling their work, ranging from T-shirts and photography to homemade jewelry and bags.

If that weren't enough, they'll also have vinyl record peddlers, vintage and antique pushers and the kind of art that can only be found in a city with as many struggling artists (and art students) as Portland.

The festival will feature live music from beginning to end, starting at 11 a.m., including local acts like Confusatron, Huak, Honey Clouds, Dead End Armory and The Rattlesnakes.

There are a lot of rings in this circus, and considering it came from a simple "what-if" session, it's an accomplishment.

But it came into being not just because of hard work -- there's been plenty of that -- but because even the craziest, most unbelievable or just plain weird brain candy sessions always have a hint of truth in them.

For as many clubs and bars Portland has, there's still a void in where bands can play.

Even with artist co-ops and online business, Portland can still be a tough place to start a small business, let alone sell individual work.

Noah DeFilippis, who owns design studio Pinecone+Chickadee with his wife, Amy Teh, said the idea was to just have a place for bands to play.

He envisioned something like generator shows, where bands bring their instruments, speakers and a power source and just do a show where they can.

"Instead of whining about not having good alternative venues to play, we wanted to create one," said Sean Wilkinson, an organizer. Wilkinson is art director for The Bollard and drummer for the band Honey Clouds.

"It just seemed like the kind of thing that really fits Portland and the music and art scene here."

Wilkinson said bands know the benefits of being part of a community. It comes with the job, he said, and "being forced, by the nature of shows, to play together with other bands. We experience how inspiring collaboration can be."

In giving Picnic life, Teh said they realized it's not just that people want locally made products, but they also want to know the people behind them.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=209012&ac=PHnws

Why teach? They know the answer
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

You've got to wonder sometimes why teachers do it.

The pay is modest at best. The hours, if you factor in the late nights correcting papers and weekends planning lessons, are all-consuming. And the public feedback, especially when the latest standardized test scores come out, can be nothing short of brutal.

So why teach?

"That's so easy to answer," replied Sherri Gould, who chairs the English department and serves as literacy coach at Nokomis High School in Newport. "It feeds your soul. Our job, our work with children, is the most important job in the world. And we value that very, very much."

Gould was one of a half-dozen Maine Teachers of the Year who gathered Wednesday at Congin Elementary School in Westbrook to honor Gloria Noyes, a fifth-grade teacher at Congin who is the 2009 Maine Teacher of the Year.

The ceremony, attended by educators, members of Noyes' family and a few hundred loudly cheering kids, came in the same week that the blogosphere is beside itself over statewide test scores that could, and should, be higher.

The conventional wisdom: Blame it all on the teachers.

The reality: To be a teacher in this day and age is to be an unsung hero.

Take Teacher of the Year Noyes, for example. On the eve of receiving her award, she was down at Target in South Portland buying four playground balls, a broom and a dustpan – out of her own pocket – for the kids at Congin.

A broom and dustpan?

"We're always spilling pencil shavings," she said with a smile.

Ask why she teaches (at the same school she once attended as a child, by the way), and Noyes will give you the simplest of answers.

"Kids," she said. "Watching them succeed, you can't pay me enough. Or actually, you could stop paying me."

She's hardly alone.

Todd Fields, who directs Westbrook's vocational education center and won Teacher of the Year as a drafting instructor back in 2000, works for "that moment when you see the students get it there's no satisfaction or reward better than seeing your students excel at what you're teaching them."

As he spoke, Fields pulled up his shirt-sleeve.

'Look at me," he said. "I still get goose bumps talking about it."

Peter Lancia, Congin Elementary's principal and Maine Teacher of the Year in 2002, said the essence of good teaching "is not about the scores and all the media and government stuff."

"It's relationships. It's a simple relationship between two people -- the teacher and the child," Lancia said. "That's what it's about. That's what will sustain you."

Argy Nestor (1995) taught visual arts for 30 years at MSAD 40 in Union before taking a job two years ago with the Maine Department of Education.

For her, teaching has a lot more to do with magic than money.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=209550&ac=PHnws

We know that look
BY J.P. DEVINE
Freelance Writer Morning Sentinel

Yesterday, on my walk, I watched a couple of parents saying good-bye to a young girl in front of Coburn Hall at Colby College. The mother was going through her wallet looking for something to hand to her daughter. The father stood back a few feet with a look on his face that I recognized.

I had that look once when I sent off my own to college.

It's the look that the great bullfighter, Manolete, had on that hot afternoon in Linares a long time ago. He probably sat there in the dust with that look, the look that says, what the heck happened here? I was ready for this. I've been preparing for this. I've trained for this.

The father watched as his baby girl argued with the mother over the card. I'll bet he was thinking what Manolete was thinking, what I was thinking when I said good-bye to them. What the heck happened here, I was prepared for the last hug, the whispered, "I love you, daddy."

But he wasn't prepared for the quick turn-away, the wave as she ran to her new life. He was thinking what we all thought: What the heck happened here? I carried her home on her first day out of the hospital. I changed her diapers in the days when you had to wash them in a laundromat at three in the morning. I listened to her breathing at night and kept getting up when her mother did, so I could watch her being nursed.

This young woman standing there, just a few feet away, checking a list with her Capricorn mother, doesn't she remember the cardboard house he made for her from a refrigerator box? Doesn't she remember the pony ride that she was afraid to take, so he walked along side until she smiled and pushed him away? Is this the final push? Is she no longer afraid of the pony ride? Is she that brave, so soon, this quick?

I could hear him offer to help her up with that last suitcase. "No, no daddy," she said, "I can do it." But he wanted to do it. He wanted that last moment. Didn't she know that? He wondered if she had enough money? She said she was fine.

He wondered if she remembered when she used to ask for 50 cents, then a buck, then 20 bucks. I sat under a tree and watched them. I knew it was a private moment for them, but I couldn't look away. It was that look on his face. The mother turned and asked him a question. He smiled and shrugged that daddy shrug that says, "It's up to you," or "Why ask me?" Sure. Why ask me?

A boy came along. I couldn't hear him, but he was obviously offering to help. He shook the mother's hand, then the father's. He said something and the girl smiled and he picked up her suitcase. He was going to help her to her room with that last bag.

The father stood there, stunned.

That look was back, that stunned look that says, "What the heck is happening here?" It's Manolete sitting in the sand on that hot afternoon at Linares, Spain.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5401790.html

Dentists fear rule would scare patients
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

It was, like many press releases, too good to be true.

"Maine Citizens Ask: Must I Really Strip and Shave for My Dentist?" blared the headline over the release that had reporters' and editors' jaws dropping all over Maine last week.

The release, put out by the California-based Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation, focused on a rule now being considered by the Maine Board of Dental Examiners that would require dentists who use "oral conscious sedation" on their more phobic patients to first hook said patients up to an electrocardiogram, also known as an EKG.

"Maine residents who are already squeamish about visiting their dentist now face the very real specter of having their dentists require them to remove their shirts and blouses. (To be effective, some dentists may ask women patients to remove their bras as well)," the release warned.

The EKG, it continued, "may also require dentists to shave body hair off their patients, in order to be effective."

Along with the release, which lambasted the proposed rule as "patently absurd," came two photos: one of a young boy stripped to the waist with a jungle of wires and electrodes stuck to his torso; the other of a bewildered young woman in the early stages of unfastening her bra.

Good fodder for a media feeding frenzy? No doubt.

An accurate portrayal of what this rule would require? Well not exactly.

"This whole thing, it's crazy!" Dr. Daniel Steinke, a dentist from Dover-Foxcroft, told the board Friday during a hearing on the rule in Augusta. "You on the board are upset with all the pressure that's been received here. And we're upset. It just didn't need to be."

Steinke, a member of DOCS who's actually quoted in the release, told the board (none of whom, by the way, appeared amused) that the release was sent out by the national organization without consulting the membership here in Maine.

"It wasn't good," said Steinke. "But you know what? As I've told these reporters we're getting your attention. Our frustration has been that we can't get your attention."

Attention grabbing aside, there is a legitimate debate underlying all the talk of bra hooks and body hair.

Oral conscious sedation – through which patients with paralyzing fear of the dentist's chair are administered sedatives in pill form to help get them through, say, a filling or root canal – has emerged in recent years as an effective way to persuade people who might otherwise go untreated to come in and get their teeth fixed before things really become serious.

The American Dental Association's guidelines for the practice do not require that patients under oral conscious sedation be hooked up to an electrocardiogram. Maine's dental board, while proposing that the ADA guidelines be adopted here, added the EKG requirement "to enhance public safety," according to spokesman Doug Dunbar.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=210121&ac=PHnws&pg=2

Diverse candidates raise the bar on political coverage
By JEANNINE GUTTMAN
Portland Press Herald

If you are a woman watching the media focus on Sarah Palin, you are probably feeling a bit perplexed. There is a deja vu factor here. Didn't Hillary Clinton fall victim to this same brand of press scrutiny?

If you are a person of color, you probably have had similar moments with the campaign coverage of Barack Obama.

When former President Bill Clinton called Obama's war position "a fairy tale," many black Americans were angry and hurt. They saw that characterization as a subliminal attack on Obama's campaign, an attempt to define his quest for the White House as a fantasy. Some in the media didn't get the insult. But many people of color did.

When a reporter on MSNBC used the phrase "pimped out" to describe Chelsea Clinton's campaign efforts on behalf of her mother, Clinton supporters reacted with anger and pain as well. Why use this kind of language? Why demean Chelsea Clinton? How was this journalism?

When some reporters tried to make hay with news that Palin's 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, Republican supporters cried foul. What did her teenage daughter have to do with her veep selection? Why were pundits suggesting she could either be a good mother of five or a No. 2 on the national ticket – but not both?

What is going on? Are the media elitist? Chauvinistic? Hopelessly out of touch?

Because, and let's be real here, some of the coverage of these people – no matter what one's political persuasion – does feel a bit forced. Or blown out of proportion. Or unfair. Or all of the above.

Over the past week, as the Republican Party has railed against the media treatment of Palin, I read many columns by journalists who vigorously denied a bias. I recall reading similar defenses when it came to the press' demeanor toward Hillary Clinton.

Such defenders protest any challenge to press coverage, saying the media have the right – yes, even the obligation – to question and probe the national candidates as we see fit. We have a right to treat everyone the same – men, women and people of color.

I understand that position as a journalist; in the grand scheme of things, I know where my colleagues are coming from when they offer that justification.

But as a woman, I also understand that the filter through which a lot of news about Clinton, and now Palin, was reported seemed especially designed just for them.

In other words, they weren't being treated like everyone else. Despite the media's insistence to the contrary, they were treated as "other." As something different, strange, perhaps even alien.

How else can you explain the famous dissection of Clinton's "cackle"? What was that all about?

And now we have the dissection of Palin's family and her role as mother and wife. Why is that significant?

Neither of these candidates was treated with the typical story frame because they are not typical. They are not like "everyone else."

In our history of national leaders, "everyone else" is code for older, white males.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=209815&ac=Insight




Photos From The Associated Press

The 'Gypsy' gets down to business
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

Mary Reno, cancer survivor and single mother of six, has all kinds of things for sale in her eBay store: books, incense, candy dishes ... and a 45-foot semi-trailer?

"I just want to provide for my family," Reno said. "And not have to worry if I'm going to be able to buy toilet paper or paper towels or a gallon of milk."

So yes, she's selling a 45-foot, Great Dane dry-van storage trailer on The Hungarian Gypsy, the name of her eBay store. And here's how it came to be listed.

Reno is one of hundreds of people who have benefited in the past eight years from Project GRACE, a nonprofit, volunteer organization based in Scarborough whose mission is "to improve the lives of our neighbors by identifying both those in need and those willing to share their gifts, and coordinating the interchange in a compassionate, confidential manner."

For Reno, that translates into a lifeline over the past two years.

Once happily employed as an associate director for a home-care agency, she was treated for Hodgkins lymphoma in 2007. That, combined with a fall that ruptured three discs in her back, left her unable to return to a regular full-time job.

So now she finds herself dependent on the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, along with food stamps and occasional help from Project GRACE, to keep her and her kids' heads above water. But truth be told, she doesn't want the handouts – she wants to support her family on her own.

Reno created her eBay store this year in the hope that she could use the mountain of paraphernalia in her garage – she inherited most of it from relatives – to generate a little extra cash.

She named the online enterprise The Hungarian Gypsy after her grandmother, who "taught me how to shop." And with the help of her children, ages 12 to 24, she mastered the art of photographing her merchandise, listing it in her store "window" and quickly shipping what sells with an efficiency that has earned her nothing but excellent ratings from her customers.

The problem is, she hasn't made much money. The 193 items she's sold thus far netted her a grand total of $490.84.

Enter Sam Kelley, owner of MBI Trailers Inc. in Scarborough and a longtime supporter of Project GRACE.

Kelley, who spends more than his share of time looking for ways to give back, has long been a contributor to www.kiva.org, a global charity that coordinates "micro-loans" from donors all over the world to budding entrepreneurs in developing countries. The amounts are small – often $100 or less – but the rewards are great and, at least in Kelley's experience, the money always gets paid back.

"It got me thinking," Kelley said. "If we can do this around the rest of the world, why can't we do something like that here?"

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=211795&ac=PHnws

Sixth-graders campaign for new voters
By BILL NEMITZ
Portland Press Herald

The question had 11-year-old Patrick Sheils flummoxed: Why, in this day and age, would someone not bother to vote?

"I don't know," Patrick said after a long pause just inside the Forest Avenue post office lobby.

More pondering.

"I don't get why anyone wouldn't vote," he finally said.

Patrick was one of 72 sixth-graders from King Middle School who fanned out all over the Portland peninsula during Tuesday's lunch hour.

Their mission: to register new voters, poll them on all kinds of things political and, in the process, learn why this national neurosis we call election season is something none of us should take for granted.

Sitting at their linen-covered table, pens and green voter registration cards at the ready, Patrick and seven of his classmates met each visitor to the post office with the same chorus: "Excuse me, sir/ma'am, are you registered to vote?"

Most, by far, said yes. And while that didn't do much for the sixth-graders' numbers -- by the time they headed back to school, the entire class had 55 completed registration cards to show for its efforts -- it says a lot about the state of democracy in Maine with Election Day just 40 days away.

According to Melissa Packard, director of elections for the Secretary of State's Office, 1,037,740 Mainers are eligible to vote, based on the most recent census estimates. Of those, 913,941 -- 88 percent -- are "active" voters, meaning they've actually voted in a recent election or at least are reachable by mail.

(For those who like a little partisan flavoring with their statistics, 332,735 Maine voters do not belong to a party, while 300,855 are enrolled as Democrats, 254,564 as Republicans and 25,784 as Green Independents.)

What's more, Maine heads into this election fresh off a 73 percent voter turnout in the 2004 presidential election -- third highest in the nation.

"That's good," said Patrick upon hearing of Maine's already impressive numbers. "But you really want to get it up to 90, 91, 92 maybe even 100 percent."

Tuesday's exercise by the sixth-graders was part of a larger "Rock the Vote" project whereby they will spend a good chunk of the fall immersing themselves in the federal, state and local elections.

They've already visited state Democratic and Republican headquarters, where they heard -- from opposite political poles -- what's at stake come Nov. 4.

They've also met with Portland City Clerk Linda Cohen and Mayor Ed Suslovic to hear about local races and learn how elections actually work.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=212068&ac=PHnws

J.P. DEVINE: Time to dress for fall
BY J.P. DEVINE
Freelance Writer Morning Sentinel

There is one pure golden leaf lying on my neighbor's lawn. I can see it from where I sit at my computer. I've been watching it for an hour now.

Actually, it's been there since supper time last night when I went out to walk Jack. It's still there, motionless. I choose to see it as an omen, an icon of things to come, the logo of early autumn. The others on his tree haven't dropped yet. I can imagine them sitting up there on their branches talking about this leaf, either impressed with its ground-breaking courage, or weeping at the death of a limb mate.

I'm an animist to my core, one who attributes a soul to plants and inanimate objects. I cling to the fading belief that some supernatural power animates the material universe. Some call it God, Allah, Yahweh or Jehovah. I call it Harry.

These leaves, I believe, are thinking, "There but for the grace of Harry, go I." They know, as we do, that they're next, that they will soon be down there on the grass waiting for the swoop of the rake.

Autumn came yesterday at 11:44, but hardly anyone noticed, what with the election wars and the carnival in Washington trying to keep us all from relearning the songs our grandparents sang, "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?"

But come it did, and soon after all the other deciduous children started passing the word. It's time to dress for fall. Soon there will be darkness at noon, or so it will seem. After the election, we will all be pitched into blackness of winter.

There will be Chekovian days, with the last globules of sun tinting the birches. It's not Moscow, Trigorin, but it will pass for it.

We will all sit down to the six o'clock news and meatloaf with mashed potatoes, no sassy salads thank you. We are summer's fallen angels preparing for Karamazov nights and Gorky mornings. Yes, Thanksgiving will lighten the gloom, but what will we be thankful for? That depends on which of our choices emerges victorious and how deep the coming depression goes.

We can always fall back on the cheerful words, spoken through gritted teeth, of grandma back in 1932. My mother used them too, and Aunt Winnie at every gathering, "Well," they intoned, "We've always got our health, and each other."

Everyone, even Uncle Jack, the family drunk who was always recovering from some fall or scrape or the other, would chant, "That's for sure." And then someone would say grace, and everyone would fill their mouths with bean soup or cabbage and potatoes or whatever "the Lord" put on our table.

This is a dark year ahead for many.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5447323.html